From the link: "Unlike nuclear weapons, they require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce. It will only be a matter of time until they appear on the black market and in the hands of terrorists, dictators wishing to better control their populace, warlords wishing to perpetrate ethnic cleansing, etc."

Oh yeah baby! Let you buy robotic soldiers that cost multiples of human soldiers, while being far less enduring (energy source, anyone?), far less astute, slower and less flexible on rough terrain... and just as vulnerable (only in a movie could a machine as fragile as a Terminator survive multiple impacts of high energy bullets)

“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

the level of oppression required to stop autonomous weapons would put the worst dystopian pessimist to shame, it would require an enforced ban on programming and electronics across the entire of the planet with only government approved 'druids' able to learn the secret, dangerous magix.

this cat isnt just out of the bag, it shat on the carpet and pushed yo mammas urn off the mantlepiece.

“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

the level of oppression required to stop autonomous weapons would put the worst dystopian pessimist to shame, it would require an enforced ban on programming and electronics across the entire of the planet with only government approved 'druids' able to learn the secret, dangerous magix.

this cat isnt just out of the bag, it shat on the carpet and pushed yo mammas urn off the mantlepiece.

the level of oppression required to stop autonomous weapons would put the worst dystopian pessimist to shame, it would require an enforced ban on programming and electronics across the entire of the planet with only government approved 'druids' able to learn the secret, dangerous magix.

this cat isnt just out of the bag, it shat on the carpet and pushed yo mammas urn off the mantlepiece.

When my son was 5 he told me he wanted to go to the planet of the robots, build a robot army, and bring it back to earth to conquer the planet. He could go on about it for an hour about it in great detail.

He was really funny to listen too.

The classes and the races to weak to master the new conditions of life must give way {..} They must perish in the revolutionary holocaust --Karl Marx

Berlin (AFP) - Punching in security codes to deactivate the alarm at his store became a thing of the past for Jowan Oesterlund when he implanted a chip into his hand about 18 months ago.

"When I walk into my studio, I just wave my hand at the alarm, and the alarm turns off," the tattoo artist said.

"Whenever someone shows up with security clearance, he will wave and the alarm is deactivated, the lights are turned on... it will start up the computer, the cash machine and so on," he added.

Oesterlund is one of the small but growing number of people around the world who has a grain-sized NFC (Near Field Communications) chip embedded in him.

In fact, so convinced is he that "this is the future" that he has two of them, one in his hand and the other in his arm.

"One year ago it was 'that's just stupid', or 'wow that's just awesome'. But now multinational companies are looking into it," he said, pointing to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky as an example.

The renowned cybersecurity company had brought in Oesterlund to carry out a live demonstration of chip implantation at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin which opens to the public Friday.

The nervous volunteer is Rainer Bock, who works at Kaspersky. After Oesterlund used a needle to put a chip under Bock's skin, the new member of the "cyborg" club said: "It didn't hurt."

- 'Curiosity a factor' -

With a memory of just 880 bytes, the chips are far from the science fiction equivalent of data powerhouses carrying billions of encrypted secret documents.

Rather, they tend to have specific functions, such as unlocking a door or hooking up to an app on a smartphone.

Despite the limited uses, human chip implant manufacturer Dangerous Things told AFP that there are now around 10,000 "cyborgs" -- or humans with digital chips in them -- across the globe.

The phenomenon is not new, with a club in Barcelona offering such implants to its members as early as 2004, allowing them to gain entrance and pay for their drinks with it.

But its popularity has now accelerated with the ubiquity of smartphones, which can communicate with the chips.

Those who have done the procedure admit that for now, novelty is its key draw.

Evgeny Chereshnev, who also works for Kaspersky, got his chip about seven months ago.

"It felt weird for a couple of weeks... Then I started to understand that I've forgotten what it is to carry a badge to work, I've forgotten what it means to open a door with a key," he said, describing how with a simple wave of his hand, he now enters a secure office building without punching in codes or tapping a security card at the entrance.

But such implants are not without risks, warns Kaspersky's European research director Marco Preuss, saying that a smartphone placed close to the chip for instance, could easily pick up data.

Oesterlund said he had also weighed up the risk of someone trying to steal his chip through extreme violent means, but concluded that criminals were unlikely to go that far.

"Chopping off a hand is a really amateur way to steal something," he said.

Those who have joined the "cyborg" club believe that getting in early allows them to secure a place at the forefront of a potentially life-changing development.

"Curiosity is a factor," said Hannes Sjoeblad, who also has a chip implanted.

But he added that a key aim is "to explore this technology before the government starts doing this".

"We want to contribute to the discovery of this platform. That is very exciting in itself."

“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA

Doc wrote:When my son was 5 he told me he wanted to go to the planet of the robots, build a robot army, and bring it back to earth to conquer the planet. He could go on about it for an hour about it in great detail.

He was really funny to listen too.

I think your son might be a time traveler.....

the good news: there appears to be about 320 million different opinions about America is.the bad news: except for mine, they're all wrong.

When you have an anti-racist hammer in your hand, you tend to see everyone who disagrees with you as a racist.

Doc wrote:When my son was 5 he told me he wanted to go to the planet of the robots, build a robot army, and bring it back to earth to conquer the planet. He could go on about it for an hour about it in great detail.

He was really funny to listen too.

I think your son might be a time traveler.....

I think he might one of them libberals

“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

Doc wrote:When my son was 5 he told me he wanted to go to the planet of the robots, build a robot army, and bring it back to earth to conquer the planet. He could go on about it for an hour about it in great detail.

He was really funny to listen too.

I think your son might be a time traveler.....

You may be right. It seems like he grew up really fast

The classes and the races to weak to master the new conditions of life must give way {..} They must perish in the revolutionary holocaust --Karl Marx

Doc wrote:When my son was 5 he told me he wanted to go to the planet of the robots, build a robot army, and bring it back to earth to conquer the planet. He could go on about it for an hour about it in great detail.

He was really funny to listen too.

I think your son might be a time traveler.....

You may be right. It seems like he grew up really fast

Every now & then, one encounters a person who seems to be an "old soul." Interesting anecdotes for re-incarnation?

the good news: there appears to be about 320 million different opinions about America is.the bad news: except for mine, they're all wrong.

When you have an anti-racist hammer in your hand, you tend to see everyone who disagrees with you as a racist.

From the link: "Unlike nuclear weapons, they require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce. It will only be a matter of time until they appear on the black market and in the hands of terrorists, dictators wishing to better control their populace, warlords wishing to perpetrate ethnic cleansing, etc."

Oh yeah baby! Let you buy robotic soldiers that cost multiples of human soldiers, while being far less enduring (energy source, anyone?), far less astute, slower and less flexible on rough terrain... and just as vulnerable (only in a movie could a machine as fragile as a Terminator survive multiple impacts of high energy bullets)

I'll stick with regular soldiers, and win the war easy

To paraphrase a favourite phrase of a friend:

The track record of futurists in predicting the future is worse than that of psychics.

Inspired by the locust's jumping mechanism and elastic energy storage, Tel Aviv University researchers designed a tiny robot made from carbon rods, steel springs and 3D printed plastic pieces. It weighs less than once ounce (23 grams) and is approximately four inches (10 centimeters) long.

[...]

The robot can jump a remarkable 11.5 feet (3.5 meters), said Ayali, due to its structure and energy storage, which along with its motor makes it capable to withstand high accelerations.

[...]

From oil spills to rescue and surveillance operations, "what you do with it is whatever is needed whenever you want to engage any kind of robotic system with no human interference," he said.

[...]

“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA